pacificlectic : concert reviews & eclectic music news

FYI… PHOTOS of the SHOW at the BOTTOM

Well, I’d never been to Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley.  It’s an amazing little room (maybe 200 seats) with dinner served if you show up early.  Plus, in downtown Seattle, it offers free parking.  Yeah, you read that correctly – free parking. :)  Anyway, I showed up shortly after 6pm after fighting with traffic heading through Tacoma and into Seattle.  I got seated right up front, which was also the benefit of showing up early for the dinner & show deal.  Fantastic food, and wonderful staff!  The venue earns an A+!!  I hope they bring in some more choice acts… it was worth the trip.

Hiromi Uehara and Sonicbloom took the stage around 7:40.  The band was Hiromi on piano (a Steinway & Sons, if I recall correctly) & keyboards (3 different keyboards/syths), Tony Grey on 6-string electric bass, Dave Fiuczynski on double-neck guitar (12 string on top, 7 string on bottom), and Mauricio Zottarelli on drums.  Both Tony & Dave played on Hiromi’s two Sonicbloom records.  Actually, Tony played with Hiromi on her last four records (not just the recent Sonicbloom moniker).

As a band, they were pretty tight.  I liked Tony a lot on bass.  He had a nice groove, and his “mouthing” of the solos was fun, too.  Maurice was also great, but he was shielded from me for most of the night from an older “bigger hair” couple; so I didn’t catch many glimpses of him.  Dave was good, too… but sometime he got too “noodley” versus what the band was doing.  His solos weren’t great in my opinion, but when he was playing lead, his playing worked well.  Maybe guitar in a jazz quartet wasn’t my thing this time around.

As far as setlist, no luck.  Hiromi only announced one song from the stage: “Time Travel” from Time Control (the 2007 Sonicbloom record).  I’m pretty sure that they didn’t play “XYZ” (or the variation “XYG”).  That was a bummer, but not too much of a bummer – as the show was amazing all around.

They played a few standards, one that the name is on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t for the life of me remember it.  I can hear it still in my head (doo doo doo, doop doop doodle doop).  Damn, there are too many songs in my head and barely any names.  Hiromi also played a solo classical piece that was very familiar, but again, I’m drawing a blank.  Regardless of song names, Hiromi’s handwork is amazing.  I swear, I don’t know how she can pull off playing two different melodies at the same time with different hands.  Anyway, the whole group was an amazing bunch of musicians.  Most of the show was pretty jammy, but had elements of straight ahead jazz, and again some classical.

They’re playing again at the Jazz Alley as I type this… if anyone went tonight (June 17th), let me know how it went.

For the uninitiated to Hiromi, check out the video electronic press kit for Beyond Standard featuring “XYG“:

Or check out the video for “Time Difference“…

The Appropriate Linkage:

• Hiromi’s Official Webpage
• Hiromi on MySpace
• Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley

~Dan – np: Anakronic Electro-Orchestra – The Yiddish Part -EP-

HIROMI’s SONICBLOOM PHOTOS
all pictures (cc) 2009 Daniel Temmesfeld,
you may use freely under a creative commons attribution

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